Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-389167, filed Nov. 19, 2003, and Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-389017, filed Nov. 19, 2003, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a collision detection sensor for vehicles and a collision detection device for vehicles which detect the collision of vehicles.
2. Description of Related Art
As a technology concerning a collision detection sensor for a vehicle (or a collision detection device for a vehicle) which detects collision of vehicles, there is one having many sensor elements equipped with a piezoelectric film formed in the shape of a hexagon, and the sensor elements are so as to be flat by arranging them continuously (for example, refer to Published Japanese Translation No. H08-509934 of the PCT International Application). In such a collision detection sensor for a vehicle, each sensor element is equipped with a pair of electrodes which is arranged so that the electrodes sandwich a piezoelectric film therebetween to detect voltages, and the location and magnitude of a collision are detected from the voltage measured by each sensor element.
However, the above-mentioned conventional collision detection sensor for a vehicle (or collision detection equipment for vehicles) has a problem in that manufacturing cost is high since the piezoelectric film formed in the shape of a hexagon needs to be arranged continuously so that the arrangement is flat, and the each piezoelectric film arranged continuously so as to be flat needs to be equipped with the pair of electrodes for measuring voltages. In addition, in the case in which temperature compensations or failure judgments are performed, other sensors such as a temperature sensor become necessary, and this point is also the cause of problems that increase manufacturing cost.
The present invention was made in view of the above-mentioned situations, and has objects of providing a collision detection sensor for a vehicle and a collision detection device for a vehicle, which can reduce manufacturing cost.